Through the Outback

by Adam Ferguson

There is a place beyond the mountains of the Great Dividing Range, lost to the shining lights of Australia’s suburban sprawl. Known vaguely, if romantically, as the outback, or the bush, it has no demarcated border but refers to the nation’s vast, sparsely populated interior — 73 percent of Australia’s territory — more than two million square miles — dotted with 5 percent of its 24 million people.

It has been mythologised in poetry and song, made horrific in films like “Wake in Fright,” and infused into Australia’s history and psyche. Yet few Australians, including myself, have fully explored its realities.

Adam Ferguson, an Australian photographer, has covered geopolitical issues the world over, from India and Greece to Afghanistan and, more recently, Niger. Earlier this year he returned to his home country and embarked on a three-month, 12,000-mile odyssey across Australia’s vast interior. His resulting report, “Through the Outback,” explores the land and its people — and the complicated, evolving relationship that binds them.